


What I love about the OTW

by Elf (Elfwreck)



Category: No Fandom, OTW - Fandom
Genre: Fandom, Meta, Nonfiction, Squee, diversity, social media platforms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-30
Updated: 2011-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23159281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck/pseuds/Elf
Summary: Every time I see a post about SRS OTW BZNS, it wins my heart a little more
Kudos: 1
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	What I love about the OTW

The full title of this post should be "What I love about the OTW even though it is not very supportive of my fannish interests," but that's too long for a post title. This is directly inspired by [](https://ira-gladkova.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ira_gladkova**](https://ira-gladkova.dreamwidth.org/) 's wonderful post about [The OTW Server Poll and Fannish Diversity](http://ira-gladkova.dreamwidth.org/540.html), in which she ponders how the server naming results are heavily skewed towards Western fandoms in exactly the way they'd hoped to avoid, because they didn't take steps to arrange otherwise. (That's how privilege works, after all... you don't have to actively support it; not fighting it will allow it to continue and grow. Social dominance is a self-perpetuating system.)

Every time I see a post about SRS OTW BZNS, it wins my heart a little more, because they say things like: 

> I am not disappointed in the fans who made this vote, made this choice. I am not disappointed in our current userbase. The people who voted for these names voted with their hearts, with their fannish souls, and I have nothing but respect for that. There is nothing _wrong_ with these results as fannish choices.
> 
> No. I'm disappointed in the OTW for the way this poll was set up, how these results were obtained, and disappointed in myself as part of that.

And they don't say things like, "because it's obvious the OTW cannot effectively support fannish diversity, it's changing its mission from 'support of fanworks and fan culture' to 'support of the online fanfiction and vidding communities.'" Nor have they ever said, "we mean to support _real_ fandom, not your thing there." Everything I've seen the OTW say and do encourages me to believe they understand the scope, if not the details, of what "supporting fandom" means. That they own their failures and try to move through them, not pretend they didn't happen, and not come to a complete stop while they attempt to fix those.

The OTW cannot, at this time, effectively support fannish diversity. But I love that they keep _trying_ , and that they acknowledge the gaps even when nobody can figure out what to do about them. (Sometimes, there are good suggestions for "what should have been done about them." Sometimes those are do-able; sometimes not.)

I love that when I've pointed out some of the gaps, the response has never been "well, of course we're not going to support _that_." Sometimes it's been "doesn't [feature X] cover that?" But it's never felt like "let me explain how [feature X] is what you need;" instead, it's always come across as, "I don't know that aspect of fandom; is [feature X] enough support, or do we need more work?"

YMMV, of course. I'm biased; I love the OTW. I trust that they really do *want* to support the awesome and terrifying scope of fannish culture, wherein "fannish" is more grokked than defined. In another post, I'll go into details about my fandom areas--tabletop RPGs & filk--and how the OTW doesn't support them. For now, I'm just basking in the confidence that the OTW _wants_ to support my fanac, and won't give up on that goal, even if they flub the application from time to time.

Am I just giving credit for "good intentions?" I don't think so. If it were easy & simple, the OTW would never have come into existence. A multifandom fic archive with user-generated fandoms and tags was a leap of faith--"hey, I bet we can get enough people to volunteer to wrangle tags to make the fics findable, and I bet we can convince them to keep doing it through code changes and glitches." A fannish history wiki was another--"I bet we can navigate issues of privacy, accuracy, and wank without causing massive outcry or driving people into apathy." A journal that they knew would be controversial. Advocacy and archiving projects that are so outside the mainstream that there's no decent terminology to describe them.

And through it all--countless statements, overt and subtle, saying "we want it ALL. We want to treasure and display all of fandom, not just the White-English-USAn fandoms, not just ficfandom, not just internet-based fandom." Everyone I've spoken to in OTW admin or management loves _fandom_ , not just the parts they're involved with. Because of that, I can wait; I can trust my suggestions are being considered, and that eventually, together we'll figure out how to share the parts of fandom I love best.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally at <http://elf.dreamwidth.org/413040.html>, where there are comments.


End file.
